


I lost two cities, lovely ones

by lilith_morgana



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-20
Updated: 2013-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-26 04:32:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/646599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilith_morgana/pseuds/lilith_morgana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She swore she'd be the first to stop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I lost two cities, lovely ones

**Author's Note:**

> Really old GA fic I wrote back in the days when I still watched the show - 2006.

_I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,_  
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.   
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. 

_\--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture  
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident  
the art of losing's not too hard to master  
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster. _  
(Elizabeth Bishop – One Art)

 

 

"I don't like carrousels," she tells the fat, insolent-looking woman beside her on the bench. "Never did. And I don't particularly care for children either, so why do you insist on bringing me here?"

"Fresh air, Doctor Grey." The woman barely looks up, the newspaper in her hands still smells of ink, gives off an air of impenetrable reality somewhere else, beyond them. There's a wall, she thinks. A dividing line. ( _Septum cordis_ , the small step between the heart's ventricles, between its beat and its surroundings. Once she read this in a book and never forgot because it was beautiful or because someone beautiful said it, like a secret directive. _This one's for you_.)

Ellis takes a deep breath and brushes away odd thoughts. 

"As long as I'm back for my two o'clock appointment – if I'm not, there _will_ be unpleasant repercussions for this hotel!" 

_Is_ it a hotel? She has lost the answer to that. One of those fashionable spa retreats she's always considered a ridiculous past time activity for people without better things to do? Did someone send her here? She's afraid to ask. There's a twinge of something dark inside her head whenever she does, as the responses clash against her and the things she forget. Blankness leaves a taste of being under water. 

There's too much stress at work. She's burning out. 

"Don't worry about that, Doctor Grey, we'll be back before lunch." 

In front of them, there are three little boys playing with a basketball, and two girls chasing each other around a merry-go-round; one of them wears a blue raincoat. Ellis thinks she once bought her own kid one of those and forgot to give it to her, left it at work. She left a lot at work. (Nesting, Thatcher calls it.) 

She never took her baby, ( _Meredith_ , someone reminds her, your daughter's name is Meredith) to the park if she could avoid it. 

She can no longer remember why.

 

 

\- - -

Sometimes, when she thought Thatch was asleep or didn't care if he could hear, she'd walk out of their bedroom and call Richard at the hospital, just to hear his voice. They weren't stupid. They'd speak of patients and interns, tomorrow's schedule or the latest article she got published. Neutral ground. 

"You should have let me edited it for you; your language is atrocious." 

"Ooh, this coming from someone who was rejected for the very same publication last month." Maybe she'd soften her voice, knowing he actually cared. Maybe she'd derive some sort of satisfaction from it. He was a good man; a man who knew he'd always be second best, but that never stopped them from competing. 

"I was going to major in American Literature, have I ever told you that?"

"Yes." She'd smile, open the fridge to get a glass of milk or pineapple juice. 

"Good."

And everything they ever said on those nights was a code for something else. 

Locked doors and lunch breaks on the roof. Scrubs and journals and his voice in her ear, his mouth full of her scent. Music that he would lend her. Nights when she would hold off everything else just to listen to it, to have an opinion if he asked - and he always did. Silly notes in his locker and dark-roasted Turkish coffee at the place they thought nobody could ever find out about. A pattern of five large birthmarks on his back and shoulders, like a star constellation in their own sky, the one they shared with nobody else. 

Carousels in the rain. 

 

 

 

\- - -

"I'm so sorry, Ellis."

"Why?" The painted horses. He leaned against one of them, still holding his umbrella over her head. 

"You know why."

She took a step away and felt the raindrops in her hair. 

Both of them would count the days from there. That weekend in Seattle, in their park, when she had waited for him longer than she would ever admit to herself, had stretched out her independence and will until it was too thin to hold up and taken his hesitation for determination, his silence for agreement. She didn't hold it against him. He would hate his cowardice enough for them both. And they finished the way they had begun – like professionals writing a contract. Never tell Adele, never tell Meredith, never talk about it with mutual friends, making every effort to hide their inglorious ending. Life would always go on.

But they would count.

She swore she'd be the first one to stop. 

 

 

\- - -

He's grey when she kisses him in their hospital again. 

Grey beard, grey hair and she can't find the reason why her fingers shake as she reaches out a hand to touch it, brush against it with her palm. There's something new there. Something that first appears a little harder, but actually is much gentler if she raises her eyebrows and examines it under her fingertips. He's still _Richard_. He's calmer, wiser, less compromising and more compassionate. She remembers why she wanted to age with him. 

He's sitting in her bed but he doesn't smile. Ellis asks why and he picks up a candy from her bedside table instead of answering. Weighs it in his palm, puts it back. The only candy he likes is chocolate. Bitter chocolate, or mocha flavour. She recalls it with a jolt of pain, a blow to her system as he looks up and she can see the colour of his eyes.

"Are we old now, Richard?" 

 

 

\- - -

She doesn't like carrousels. 

The children are still playing in front of them, spinning round and round in yellow and blue like a little painted top and she no longer remembers why it makes her cry.


End file.
